An e-commerce experience for the leader in playing cards

Bicyclecards.com is a classic brand that’s been producing playing cards since 1867. Therefore, the history of the brand had to be balanced with its newfound digital store.

Our team worked with Cartamundi to reimagine–but also preserve–the company’s ethos, positioning, and style. 

One of the main goals was to build consistency and unity across the brand with regard to different audiences, all while promoting their products. From a design-to-development relationship standpoint, a top challenge was incorporating various APIs while ensuring that designs felt cohesive.

After completing market research, competitor analysis, content audit, and new information architecture, we designed a solution to interweave the business objectives, brand DNA, and user needs based on four key archetypes: 

• Socialiser 
• Magician/cardist 
• Design + gadget lover
• Collector

We analyzed user data points and behaviors to strategize the most effective ways to communicate with these audiences and build the corresponding user flows.

Not only did Cartamundi seek to grow revenue by selling Bicycle Cards, but they also wanted to create a technical foundation for the rest of their brands. 

This required both design and technical strategy to ensure future teams (DEPT® or not) would be able to use the framework from bicyclecards.com. 

For design, we created a robust design system and e-commerce style guide to ensure visual unity. And for development, we prioritised a platform that was scalable, headless, composable, and mobile-first. 

This combination will allow them to quickly add e-commerce platforms for various brands, in different locations, languages, and currencies.  

Bicyclecards.com was also the alpha site for the DEPT® product known as DASH. DASH is designed specifically to reduce development time and get websites and e-commerce platforms to market faster than traditional development.